


Forever Yours

by MeredithBrody



Series: Pretty Little Distance [6]
Category: Designated Survivor (TV)
Genre: F/M, alex is dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-15
Updated: 2018-03-15
Packaged: 2019-03-31 22:08:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13984338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeredithBrody/pseuds/MeredithBrody
Summary: Tom can't help but use Alex's grave to think.





	Forever Yours

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fibi94](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fibi94/gifts), [Hideous_Sun_Demon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hideous_Sun_Demon/gifts), [PinkAngel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PinkAngel/gifts).



> I'm going to be dead when Pheobe reads this so please enjoy my writing while you can and allow it to be my legacy.
> 
> Title and lyrics from "Forever Yours" by Grayscale.

**August 15 th, 2018**

_All the promises_   
_Vows under the covers_   
_We would play pretend my love_   
_But it was real to me_

It had been such a long time since Tom had come here alone. Back in January he’d promised that he wouldn’t come here alone, back then these constant visits had just been making it easier for him to grasp straws and pretend that Alex was still here, but that hadn’t been helping him, nor had it been helping anyone else that this had been affecting. Stopping then had helped him more than he wanted to admit, but he’d felt like he needed to come back and speak to his wife.

Tom knew that a lot of it was the fact that he was finding himself depending so much on Judith Daynes to do all that Alex had done. He didn’t want anyone to think that he was forgetting her or that he was pretending to be better at dealing with this than he was. He and Alex had made so many plans, so many promises, and none of them were going to become reality now. They’d been married for 18 years and of course that was something that was taking him a lot longer to get over.

All of that ran through his head as he walked across the grass toward where he knew Alex’s final resting place was. She was going to be here forever, and Tom was glad that he had the plot next to her. No matter what happened in the rest of his life, he knew that she was the love of his life, and he wasn’t ever going to have the same connection with anyone else. He didn’t want to spend his life lonely, but he also didn’t want to replace Alex. Not for him, and especially not for their children.

Truthfully, he didn’t know why he was so compelled to be here tonight. There hadn’t been a need like this in months, and he didn’t know if it was because Leo was going to be leaving for college in the morning, or if it was because Penny had finally opened up about some of her own feelings. Whatever it was it had been impossible to ignore and that was why he found himself here, a bouquet of flowers that seemed heavier than they should in his hand and a weight in his stomach that he had no idea how to cope with.

_Now I waste my days away_   
_I know I can’t recover_   
_There’s no love lost_   
_But I’ll be forever yours_

If anyone asked he would say that he was here because he wanted to privately mourn his wife, he would play that up so that nobody pushed any deeper to see that he was wasting his days when his staff weren’t making him work. On slow days he would literally sit and watch crappy TV, anything that took his mind off the fact that he didn’t have Alex to spend those days with. He should have spent them with Leo and Penny, but more often than not they had their own things to do.

Maybe some of his problem was just that. His children were coping with it much better than he was. Leo was always angry, with him, with everyone, but Tom knew that was already getting better. It was going to take time. Penny was like any eleven year old, and she didn’t want to be spending all her time with him anymore. So he was going to keep having to face it alone, and recovery seemed like it was a distant dream.

Recovery. Tom let out a bitter laugh as he came to stop where he knew Alex’s feet were. He took a deep breath and was once again surprised by the rush of love and pain that came hand in hand when he looked at the name on her headstone. _Alexandra C. Kirkman_. There was not enough distance between the numbers on that headstone. They were far too close together and that just made Tom flash white and angry again.

The love though, it soon smothered all the other emotions that were rolling around within him. It was the strongest emotion he felt, it had always been something that guided him. Love for his wife, love for his family, love for his profession, love for his country. It was the primary driving force for him and knowing that he still had so much for Alex despite the months that had passed now was reassuring. His heart belonged to her, and it probably always would.

_Place my bouquet of old regrets_   
_Drop the weight of my sins_   
_The ground takes in_   
_The better man I could have been_

They all said that he’d changed in the last eight months, and they weren’t wrong. He the man he’d once been wasn’t the man he now. This man was bitter and angry most of the time. He didn’t want to be, and he really wanted to stop that, but he couldn’t just let go of the anger. As he stood looking down at that headstone he knew that eventually he would have to actually try and process what it was that was going through his mind. Figure out what it was that every emotion meant. There was no point doing that just yet.

Tom wasn’t a good man anymore. He still wanted to be, he still tried to be, but he knew that there were plenty of decisions that he would have made differently if he’d had Alex to bounce the ideas off of. He was happy enough to be getting through all of this the way that he was but he wanted to be there with her sometimes. He couldn’t help but think of those dark thoughts, wondering how it would be if it had been the other way around. Probably better for others, not so much for him, but Alex would be alive.

He placed the flowers on the headstone, there above the flowers he’d placed a week earlier when he’d brought Penny and Leo. There were always flowers here. Well-wishers making sure that the First Lady’s grave was never bare. Tom was thankful to them all, it was lovely to come here and see a sea of colour. Right now though Tom couldn’t help but think that they were silently mocking him.

Who he once was was also buried under this ground. He was in there with Alex, a part of him that he didn’t even know he could lose. Even if there were others who didn’t mind who he was now Tom wasn’t sure he could live with being like this. The ground may have him, but he needed to work something new out, and this silent visit was enough to remind him that while Alex was physically gone, she was still with him. She would be supporting him, and she’d want him to be happy.


End file.
